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946 THE LE ADER. [S^tukda^
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WAE AS A SANITARY EXERCISE. The war has ...
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INVESTMENT OP SEVASTOPOL, COMMERCIALLY. ...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Cutting Op The Austrian Knot. Theee Will...
and lioaabardy ; advances would be ready for her in the coffers of Iidndon ; she might laugh at Russia , ride over Prussia , and hail Francis Joseph Emperor with , the new crown of a united Empire , perchance more enduring than that which has already lasted for nearly six hundred years .
946 The Le Ader. [S^Tukda^
946 THE LE ADER . [ S ^ tukda ^
Wae As A Sanitary Exercise. The War Has ...
WAE AS A SANITARY EXERCISE . The war has been a magnificent rally for the English people . " We were getting sunk in a quietude which we had begun to regard as immortal , and war has at a Iblow told us mercifully how senseless was that reliance . Ifc has called upon numbers of us * to become familiar with active life , and with the hardships that attend upon it—hardships , indeed , severe for tke unfamiliar frame
but sport to frames which are " hardened " against them . Napoleon tells us what we ¦ want in England -when he describes the object of the camp at Boulogne . " It has been created , " he said , " to accustom you to military exercises- ^—to marches , to fatigues ; and believe me , there is for the soldier-nothing equal to this life in the open air , which enables him to know himself and to resist the inclemency of the seasons . "
There >* s no race of men that cannot harden themselves this way ; no race more capable than the English ; none which has neglected the exercise so much . " We have amongst us , indeed ,, sailors , sportsmen , soldiers ^ who are as much at home under the bare sky as any other men ; but in proportion 16 the multitude of our countrymen , the number is small compared with that in other countries . You would find a larger per centage of Frenchmen . Take the facts : as in an Englishman ' s description of his first acquaintance with bivouac :-
—" Few of us , * ' mites tlie civil correspondent of the Tines , " -will ever forget last night . Seldom -were 27 , 000 Englishmen more miserable . The beach was almost cleared , tlie troops had marched of to their several quarters , the Light Division about six miles in advance , the 1 st Division two ndles nearer the shore , the 2 nd Division on the cliffs and hills , and a part of the 3 rd Division on the slope of the hill . No tents were sent on shore , partly because there had been no time to land them , partly because thore was no certainty of our being able to find carriage for them . Towards night the sky looked very black and lowering % thewind rose , and the rain fell , The showers ihcreasedin violence about midnight , and
early in the morning the water fell in drenching sheets , ¦ which pierced through tlie blankets and greatcoats of the houseless and tentlesa soldiers . It was fheir first bivouac—a hard trial enough in all conscience ,- worse than all their experiences of Bulgaria or Gallipoli , for there they had their tents , and now they learned to value their cawvaa coverings at their true worth . Imagine all these old generals and young lords and gentlemen exposed hour after hour to tne violence of pitiless storms , with no bed hut the reeking puddle under the saturated blankets or bits of useless ¦ waterproof wrappers , and the twenty odd thousand of poor fellows who could not got dry bits' ground , and had to sleep , or try to sleep , in little lochs and watercourses—no fire to cheer
them , no hot grog , and the prospect of no breakfast ;—imagine this , and add to it that the nice ' change of linen' had become a wet abomination , which weighed , the poor men ' s kits down , and you will admit that this seasoning' was of a rather violent character—particularly as it came after all tho luxuries of dry ship stowage . SlrQeorgo Brown slept under a cart tilted over . The Duke had some similar contrivance . Sir Do Lacy Evans was tho only General whose staff had been careful enough to provide him -with a tent . In one icspcct the rain was of service ; it gave them a temporary supply of water , but then it put a fire out of tho question , oven if the men co « W have scraped up wood to make it . The country ie , however , quito destitute of timber . "
Here is an officer ' s view of tho same hard fate , desoribed to the Morning JPost : —' " Camp , Crimea , 2 nd Div ., 5 Miles from Landing-plnco , September 15 . "I am now stretched on tho ground In tho open air , in ordor to continue rny journal . Yoatorday morning wo disembarked , I will not attempt to describe it , for it waa bo truly wonderful ( hat it exceeded oil that I had anticipated . I do not wish my friends to bo uneasy ntmut mo , a » I am aa -well o < F us most of ua , and content rayaelf , hcctur- many others worao off than myself . Wo wore ordered to dittcmburk with nothing but what wo could carry—our coats on our bucks , and three days '
provisions in our haversacks . Last night I slept with my cocked hat for a pillow , and my cloak for a covering , and , barring the rain , gofi on tolerably well . In fact , I was neves more jolly notwithstanding , so great a contrast to everything like comfort or a comfortable home . My greatest discomfort is not having been able to wash my hands since we landed . Indeed , it is very difficult to get water at all . Fortunately , I have not quite finished a bottle of cold tea that I Drought on shore yesterday , or should have been punished , for want of something to allay occasional thirst . "
The Camp of Boulogne , too , had another object—" it was to show to Europe that , without leaving any points of the interior unguarded * , 000 men could be easily concentrated between Cherbourg and St . Omer . " Could we do the like ? Certainly not ! Iu the United States , indeed , -where their standing army barely exceeds 10 , 000 men , something like 2 , 000 , 000-of soldiers , really practised with the best of weapons , will answer the call ; whil we could
to ^ muster , e barely muster 100 , 000 r militia and all . Five years ago we could not have done so much , yet we were really as much exposed to aggression from without as we are now— -perhaps more so . It is in truth a blessing for this country that the peace which some of us expected , never to see infringed , has broken ; down at a distance from our shores , and has taught us to prepare for hazards which we presumptuously believed ourselves to have outgrown .
Investment Op Sevastopol, Commercially. ...
INVESTMENT OP SEVASTOPOL , COMMERCIALLY . Artier Sebastopol , what ? "What shall we do with it all , now we have got it ?•—ifvre have or when we- have . The common idea is to give it to Turkey . Would that be the best plan ? Sebastopol is the key to the back-door of the Black Sea ; whoever has it takes in . the rear the Power possessing the frontrdoor , the Dardanelles . Husaia of course
cannot keep it . Shall any Power be permitted to take it , and so to override Coiir stantinople ? There was a notion once of offering (?) Byzantium to the Yankees , as a collateral Power , who would thus acquire a locus siandi in Europe , and be able to antagoliise the vagaries of the circumjacent barbarians . Indeed , we do not know a Power which could more effectually preserve its stand in those districts than the Yankee
rifle . But thexe might be diplomatic difficulties in the way of establishing brother Jonathan on the Black Sea ; and if not brother Jonathan , who ? Austria already possesses Trieste , and our friendship with her is too new for us quite to trust her futiire good faith . If she should not become mistress of the Euxine latchkey , is it necessary that anybody should become tenant of the dispossessed Port ? That is by no means certain . One enterprising waff suggests that
the fort itself should bo abolished , that the whole , ns it stands , should bo advertised as old materials and sold off by public auction . The sale might be held both in London and Paris—tho bids carried on by electric telegraph . And what , then , to do with the Crimea—a fine country indifferently favrned p dive it to the Turks again is the general idea , Aro the Turks tho best farmers in tho ^ orld ? Turkey , under gentle compulsion , threatens to become one of the most liberal and
promising Governments in tho world , but its _ subjects have comparatively little capacity iri the farming lino . " Wo have a new idea , which is , amongst tho divers provinces that Turkoy rules , to establish a British province . why not set emigration going in that direction , ns well as any othorP Undoubtedly it would " pay . " It would suit all parties . There is splendid land , and there are splendid markets to command ; exactly tho thing for a groat colonising , land-jobbing , and export-dealing association of merchants .
with a magnificent & nreefc © ry ~ somewhere on Cornhill . ¥ e bespeak a handsome present from the directors oa their election , —an honorarium to * which the secretary of the intended company should contribute largely , in gratitude for our throwing out the idea . We offer to be the organ of the " Crimea Emigration , Land-Farming , and General Orientallmprovement Association . " Splendid profits might be got oa the purchase and sal © of land ; the emigrants would find plenty of employment ; and by an easy compromise
they might enjoy the light taxation of Turkey —for , is not Turkish taxation light as compared with British ?—while they would astonish the Sultan with the prodigious taxproducing industry . The Sultan , therefore , would recognise in the Crimea his favourite province ; and feeling the " sweet conviction steal upon his soul , through the purse , would learn to « appreciate at its full the delights of a British constitution . I \ ar your Briton is the man to be tamely governed and swingeingly taxed . Thus ¦ we have disposed of the Crimea .
"What to do with "the fleet and army ? The fleet might be . excellently employed ' in ¦ the proposed emigration ; nay ,: it might be sold on mutually advantageous terms to the intended company . . As to the Russians , they might be brought over "here ; undergo a twelvemonth ' s schooling in the . British language , customs , and constitution , and be turned loose throughout the Kussian empire - —free missionaries for the emancipation of that benighted land . This is away to turn a despot ' s army upon , himself . But the grand Russian ! the great prize of Sebastopol—Mensehikoff—what to do with him ? He is the finest Russian of them
alla Tartar , a "vvit , a Croesus , a general , a prince , a diplomat , a despot , a slave : —everything in one . He has , indeed , admirably defined the limits of Russian intellect , as Sfc . Arnaud says ; . lie committed the double fault of getting himself into a hole and letting the subjects of his master- see him there , reduced to impotency , Mensehikoff is , by special appointment , the cleverest , ablest , and most trustworthy Knssian of the whole ; . for to him has been allotted the most difficult post , and we find what Kussian capacity can do when it is tried . "We know but of one story to equal the tale of Mensehikoff , and that is in the region of fairy-land .
A princess , seated upon her throne , was threatened with a great calamity , unless , to absolve herself from the punishment for having committed some unintentional fault , she could tell the name of the threatening unknown mis-shapen pigmy that stood before her and announced her future doom . The name could not be discovered far or wide ; there was no directory to tho hand of tho princess ; eminent as the individual was , ho was anonymous . But he was defeated , as we often , are , by his own foiblo . Ho was too confident aa to the doom of the princess ; just as Mensehikoff was as to the doom of the " sick
man . " The dwai'f could not contain his exultation . The princess wandered forth in search of his name ; and one evening , unperceived , she came upon him dancing , around a fire that ho had lighted , and exclaiming how she never would find out that " Kump lestiltsk in . is my name" '—just as Nicholas believed that tho sick man and his friends would never find him . out . —He presented
himself to tho doomed princess on tho appointed day , and she politely welcomed him by his name . TIiq little dwarf was furious with rnge—still quito in the Russian fashion ; and in Ma rago—like Mensehikoffho stamped upon the ground with such fury that his littlo foot went in , and there it stuck . Tho aliabby , wealthy , barbarous , malignant old gentleman who insulted tho
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 7, 1854, page 10, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_07101854/page/10/
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